I use a queue system. I use a yellow legal pad as one thread (major problem category, ie: the financial database project, the active directory design), with each page being a queue. Then I either spend my time scheduling tasks or completing them. Just write down all the stuff you can think of to do at the end of each day. Then, the next morning, start at the top and do that task. As you work on the task, use a yellow highlighter to make a "progress bar": When the task is 50% complete, your highlight bar is 50% across, complete 100%.
Next thing you know it will be time for lunch and you can slack the rest of the day... of course, you have to actually do it. Right now I should be working, but I'm on slashdot. I can see my notepads though. Usually when I start to feel guilty about not working, I'll pick up the notepad and read through it to make sure the project is cemented in my mind. When I start a new project, I spend a few days writing notes and diagrams, figuring out a flow for everything. Then you pick a place and start making details. When it comes to coding, I then transfer the notes into COMMENTS in a blank IDE. Like I'll have a comment that looks like this://function makewindow(pixel lr pixel up down)//{// start at that pixel// create a box// probably loop from pixel lr to box width// loop from pixel updown to box height// call render()// peace out//}
Which is from my notes but maybe with a little more thought put into it. In the notes it would be "draw box" I don't waste my time writing pseudocode on paper, when I can use a comment.
Then you just go line by line, refine the comment into your code. After that, you can refine the comment so it's just a description of the lines of code. Then you have full documented code from the beginning.
Oh yeah, and I write a manual for all product features before I make them. One page in MS Word. Use the built in style sheets for Header One (Feature Name) and then break up the task into Header 2 and Header 3 subs with normal text. Print, it looks great, NO EFFORT other than keep headings on their own line (don't even need a line break), then highlight and tag with applicable style. Impresses the boss EVEN WHEN YOU HAVEN'T WRITTEN CODE. Because, the code is not the work. The work is the plan, the architecture.
I'm not saying they ARE rigged, but if they WERE rigged, we wouldn't be able to do anything about it (unless someone really high up intervened or a lot of whistleblowers stood up). Because of the broad "anti-terror" and "homeland security" laws, the few early opponents could be easily silenced, and of course anyone else who chose to speak out would think twice after seeing the others disappear. It's not unlike Naxi Germany, where you they used FUD as a force multiplier. If everyone stood up at once, they could never handle it, but a few at a time are pretty easy to deal with. Once everyone notices what's happening (you know, the-people-who-watch-Fox-News-and-CNN-everyone), it's too late and only some outside force intervening can disrupt it.
But, they are probably not rigged. I mean, there are thousands of election boards with many people on each who can object. They are elected themselves of course. But they wouldn't let the system the tender do that to us. Of course, this guy is getting fired for standing up.............
People care about money but they don't care about their vote. It's too complicated. People don't realize that they are putting their freedom in trust of a system that also runs the voting. It really means our votes don't matter AT ALL, because at any time the results can be altered in thousands of ways. A few top guys get together, a few Diebold employees on payroll, bing, done, finished. And if we keep getting the same sort of people in there we have been (which we will, because it's not our choice anymore), they will continue to stack courts, increase presidential/executive authority, pass laws, amend constitutions, etc. that further this activity so the next election they can be even sneakier.
GATES: Welcome, young Balmer. I have been expecting you.
Balmer's son peers at the hooded figure defiantly. Gates then looks down at the boy's binders.
GATES: You no longer need those.
Gates motions ever so slightly with his finger and Balmer's Son's binders fall away, clattering to the floor. The boy looks down at his own hands, free now to reach out and grab Gate's neck. He does nothing.
GATES: Guards, leave us.
The red-, yellow-, green- and blue-cloaked guards turn and disappear behind the elevator.
GATES (to Balmer's Son): I'm looking forward to completing your training. In time you will call me Master.
BALMER'S SON: You're gravely mistaken. You won't convert me as you did my father.
Gates gets down from his XP Console and walks up very close to Balmer's Son. Gates looks into his eyes and, for the first time, Balmer's Son can perceive the evil visage within the hood.
GATES: Oh, no, my young Linux Admin. You will find that it is you who are mistaken...about a great many things.
BALMER: His iPod.
BALMER extends a gloved hand toward Gates, revealing his son's iPod. Gates takes it.
GATES: Ah, yes, a Linux Admin's toy. Much like your father's Portable Media Center(tm). By now you must know your father can never be turned from the dark side. So will it be with you.
BALMER'S SON: You're wrong. Soon I'll be dead...and you with me.
Gates laughs.
GATES: Perhaps you refer to the imminent attack of your Unix DoS Squad.
Balmer's Son looks up sharply.
GATES: Yes...I assure you we are quite safe from your friends here.
BALMER looks at his son.
BALMER'S SON: Your overconfidence is your weakness.
GATES: Your faith in your friends is yours.
BALMER: It is pointless to resist, my son.
Gates turns to face Balmer's Son.
GATES (angry): Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. (points to a NETSTAT on the monitor) Your friends out there on the Internet..
Balmer's Son reacts. Gates notes it.
GATES (cont):...are walking into a trap. As is your DoS Squad! It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the IP of the open ports. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of BSA agents awaits them.
Balmer's Son look darts from Gates to Balmer and, finally, to the iPod in Gate's hand.
GATES: Oh...I'm afraid the firewall will be quite operational when your friends' packets arrive.
I think the "forms", paper or digital, are archaic. They have been fundamentaly the same since the 1950's. It would be cool to get a stack of 1040's, one for each year for the last 50 years, just to see the changes.
The computer systems they use to process the returns are probably older than the forms. And the people running them are either A. older than that or B. not worth talking to. At least they haven't outsourced to India, but have you ever called the IRS? Their phone system was installed in the 1920's. It grates and clicks and 50% of the time there's so much static that you can't even have an intelligable conversation with the person on the other end who's not worth talking to.
I am self-employed and so my taxes are a little more complicated than sending in the 1040EZ and getting the money back. On the surface, it doesn't seem very complicated--save everything, have separate accounts and accounting for business and personal, don't lie on your return, pay your estimated taxes on time.
But really, why is there a fucking box on the first line of the form asking if I'll donate $3 to some election campaign? What does that really mean? Is that the magic "no audit" box? Can I check that box, fill in all zeros and not pay any taxes this year?
Why is there a HUGE FUCKING LIST of stuff you can deduct, depreciate, and adjust your income with? They should have a short list describing stuff you can't: anything fun, anything good, anything nice. It's pretty simple: if you enjoyed making a purchase, it is NOT DEDUCTIBLE!
Then there's all these scams that you have to pay a CPA to do, because they know all the tricks. This is the computer age! Why can't my bank provide me with a file at the end of the year giving me a list of deductible expenses? There's a multi-billion dollar industry here that's never been created because they change the fucking laws every year. Look what it's done to the IRS.
In the late 60's, Nixon took us off the gold standard. Since then, the IRS have been using the same computers and the same forms to process increasingly large numbers in huge stacks. It's no wonder no one wants to get into the business (besides like Intuit) -- look at what it's done to the IRS.
I mean, you look at the post office. What a fucked up bureaucracy. But damn, they can move a physical object around the country pretty fast and cheap--and make money. And they always have new equipment, and it pays for itself. The post office is a horrible piece of shit company, but it's a company, not a service, not a department of the government. And it makes money and runs ok. Not like fedex does, but not bad.
They need to start fresh, new. Use a nice fair flat tax for individuals and a nice fair flat tax for corporations. They need to skim a little of the collections (.001% or something) and buy some new computers for every employee.
The problem is they can't do it fast enough to be ready for the next tax season. The real problem is that so many people are ripping off the system and then sending the money to the lawmakers that they can't change it. They'd all go broke. The government would end up having to give money back because they couldn't spend all of it.
They actually did that this year in Nevada--they gave the money back because they had so much they couldn't spend it?
What if the government had to do it's "taxes" every year through the same IRS system, and had to prove every expense, etc? Would we be bankrupt?
Check this out, type "nanotechnology" in the finance search box or click.
You get a list of 60 nanotechnology related companies. I'm assuming it searches by profile or industry. With a more advanced search language, you could pull up very selective lists of stocks. The hard part to trading is finding a stock in the sector that you like and then comparing it with a few competitors. Google could add some tags so you could do:
I don't really understand how you can say there is 'one world government coming into power'.
It's merely the trend that's taking place worldwide. There are fewer and fewer individual governments. Look at the EU, a great example: during WWII, who would've thought that all of western europe would unite under a common currency? NAFTA caused many changes in North America, providing a set of "international laws" which directed trade and future agreements between the US and it's neighbors. Laws are the basis of government.
The underlying trend is that there will be more and more of these agreements. More and more western hemisphere countries are linking their currency to the US dollar, which is why there has been turmoil in South America for the past 25 years... I would guess that South America will have a free trade agreement in place soon; if it weren't for the worldwide black market in drugs (which competes with oil as being the number one dollar value product traded), south america would already be one country. A lot of people benefit from conflicts between countries and economic inequality. During a hawkish administration like we have in power now (Bush and Co.), defense contractors benefit greatly.
I just don't see how it's possible to not unite eventually, especially as the internet continues to spread into the 3rd world. That will be the way they jump on the worldwide economy, digitally, and start selling their products to consumers directly.
What if you could log on and buy your product straight from the factory in china and cut out walmart, distributers, etc?
Yeah, there's a checkbox to disable all recursion in Windows Server DNS, under DNS > Forwarders and Advanced tabs.
The problem is doing the cache for internal hosts (or an internal interface) and running zone authority for external (internet) users on one server. Apparently it's not possible using the built in configuration tool. There's probably a registry key which determines which interface will forward or not, around here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Cu rrentVersion\DNS Server It may be possible to get another instance running on a different interface also..
Until then, you need two hosts in Windows, with one not allowing recursion on the outside or DMZd/NATd and one local cache/forwardder box inside. Thanx MS
I think that this is probably going to be the most exciting 50 years ever--so many new advances and new problems facing the world. I think that this guy needs to stop letting nostalgia get to him.
When in history have: so many people had the ability to share and communicate ideas When in history have we actually had to worry about the carrying capacity of the planet. When in history have we had one world government coming into power?
Ok, those are all social changes. Tech? Shit, too many to list: NANOTECHNOLOGY for one, will change everything from computers to cars to carpet. GENETIC ENGINEERING/BIOTECH will probably create a drug that stops the aging process (in the next 50 years), clones, etc. SPACE, humans will again turn their eyes towards the sky once we are mostly living peacefully around the world. Mars, Venus, probes, space stations, space tourism, space elevators (see NANOTECHNOLOGY), MORE.
Yeah, it's not as "easy" to innovate, but when was it ever EASY? Edison worked for years on the light bulb and his other inventions, which is probably one of the simplest things we use each day.
I mean, sure, most innovation today is happening either at a really large scale or a really small scale and so to the "average human" it doesn't seem very cool or sexy (it's not "human sized"). But once people see that these things will create human sized changes in the world, they are going to take notice.
IBM should FIRE this guy if he's the VP of Research.
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation can multiply their fortune by buying overpriced software from Microsoft. They buy a bunch of PCs for the third world, tax free because it's chairity. Then they buy a bunch of copies of Windows and Office from their own company for hundreds of dollars. So basically they are buying the boxes from themselves. But if they donate all of the "profits" to the foundation, all of a sudden they aren't paying taxes on the money. So the money just goes round and round in different Bill bank accounts, while MS fills the world with microsoft headies for the cost of some commodity hardware.
MIT should get smart and do something similar:
1. Price of the box hardware, en masse: $100.00 2. Create a corporation to manufacture, configure and distribute the boxes. 3. Create a charitable foundation to buy the boxes from the corporation and give to the Africans. 4. Corporation charges the foundation $300.00 for the box, Terms NET 30. 5. Corporation takes $200 profit (out of thin air) and donates it to the foundation and does not pay taxes on the money. 6. Both sides balance sheets look good because the money is in 2 places at the "same time", yet all they are doing is spending $100 "REAL" dollars per computer.
Because you have more money than is actually really there, you are leveraging your money with time. The better financials can help the company borrow money, sell stock at a higher price, etc. The foundation looks stronger than it actually is.
Of course, it's hard to do this when you're a small enterprise, because banks aren't giving you the benefit of the doubt and letting you time stuff right. It could be done, however. The hardware costs will kill you, of course.
The real deal is that Bill and Melinda aren't selling something that costs money, they are only selling the software, letting other people worry about the hardware. They are selling copies of something, which costs fractions of a cent to make, for big prices. And they are selling it to their own foundation, and using the tax benefits to spread their software to new worlds, new users, etc. like a cancer.
SEC. 217. UNMANNED ADVANCED CAPABILITY AIRCRAFT AND GROUND COMBAT VEHICLES.
(a) GOAL- It shall be a goal of the Armed Forces to achieve the fielding of unmanned, remotely controlled technology such that--
(1) by 2010, one-third of the operational deep strike aircraft of the Armed Forces are unmanned; and
(2) by 2015, one-third of the operational ground combat vehicles of the Armed Forces are unmanned.
(b) REPORT ON ADVANCED CAPABILITY GROUND COMBAT VEHICLES- Not later than January 31, 2001, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report on each of the programs undertaken by the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force jointly with the Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to demonstrate advanced capability ground combat vehicles. The report shall include the following for the program of each military department:
(1) A schedule for the program, including, in the case of the Army program, a schedule for the demonstration of the capability for unmanned, remotely controlled operation of advanced capability ground combat vehicles for the Army.
(2) An identification of the funding required for fiscal year 2002 and for the future-years defense program to carry out the program and, in the case of the Army program, for the demonstration described in paragraph (1).
(3) A description and assessment of the acquisition strategy for unmanned ground combat vehicles planned by the Secretary of the military department concerned, together with a complete identification of all operation, support, ownership, and other costs required to carry out such strategy through the year 2030.
(c) FUNDS- Of the amount authorized to be appropriated for Defense-wide activities under section 201(4) for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, $200,000,000 shall be available only to carry out the programs referred to in subsection (b).
I come from a long helpdesk background and am now a senior developer at a mid-sized company. Unlike most of you nerds there's one thing I enjoy more than "being right" and that's "being lazy." That's why I love stupid users. I loved having a job where the biggest problem I faced in a day was telling a user to turn their monitor on. Or turn their capslock off. The worst job I EVER had was working with some very bright and very motivated individuals who were not geeks but were extremely competent in everything they did. The one thing they didn't know well was computers, and in that business you didn't need to know computers to make a crapload of money. But because they were all so brilliant, every little thing was nitpicked. Everything had to be done now now now. There were no easy problems and every day I was challenged to learn and perfectly perform something that I'd never done before with technology. There was always some shit on the line: huge fines from regulatory institutions, huge investments of money, hundreds of employees counting on your work. If the worst you have to deal with is someone dumber than you, you have it made. Make friends with your users, treat them like people, and soon you'll be in middle management, making bad decisions for a big salary.
Yeah, and you look at the events that were occuring before the WTC thing and the general public was starting to get interested. Millions marching worldwide to protest G8, "globalization", increasing police powers, restrictions on free speech, etc. Now, 6 years later, China is rapidly becoming the #1 economy, EU is ALREADY bigger than the U.S., energy consumption worldwide is still growing exponentially and we are rapidly heading towards the entry of China and India (2 billion+ people) moving into the first world. Granted, at first it will only be a small segment of those economies, as it already is (100-200 million people). American rights are continually trampled for "our safety" when I have never felt unsafe. The scary thing is to even think about how easy it was for people to take advantage of the fear and profit SO GREATLY--one can almost see those same people manufacturing a similar scenario in the future when they need another distraction/reason. I mean, it was SO EASY for them to past unconstitutional laws.
The constitution is just a guide, of course. The forefathers knew what government could be capable of and tried to make general rules that would allow the people to keep control of their government. The problem is, this is a big fucking experiment. Have these rules ever really been tested sucessfully? I mean, they could never beat Great Britian on their own turf, so they RAN AWAY to the open lands of America to make their stand where they knew the British couldn't win. France helped. When they wrote the constitution, they took a look around at the current world political situation and the history books and tried to come up with a list of things that could prevent a government from serving it's people in the barest sense, and as an experiment, proposed something that never existed.
Even in the first years of the constitution's existence, many amendments were made, including the Bill of Rights, which is what we keep quoting. I think that there are a few things that really stand out, and they are a few really good ideas that we should all remember, regardless of our personal beliefs.
#1. Religion and State are separate, please. Confusing beliefs with logic is a mistake, although there is a fine line sometimes. However, hating Muslims is no different than hating Jews. NO DIFFERENT. Fine, hate PEOPLE, but not ideas.
Likewise, don't confuse a country with it's people. We don't hate Germans in this country anymore, yet they were hated. We threw Japanese in camps during WWII yet today they own half of our currency--in fact, they are the reason we are able to experience such amazing economic growth. Iraqis are not all gunmen. They are, just like the Germans, mostly just normal people who go to work, eat, sleep, read their bible, etc.
You have to understand that the last 200 years have been a whirlwind for religions everywhere. The industrial revolution, the energy/oil booms, the space age, sexual revolutions in western society, the internet--these have all just come into being and suddenly a lot of great ideas that really helped people stay alive and live a happy life are rapidly becoming irrelevant.
For instance: You KNOW that the Muslim AND Jewish tenants for not eating pork are because it was DANGEROUS (Among other reasons). In the last 200 years, refrigeration, thermometers, preservation, etc. has all come into being. (and swine just doesn't fit in well with the ecosystem in the mideast)
Yeah, patent-encumbered. But look at the product! How many people here will ever A. Have the dough to buy one of these or B. Have a legitimate use for it? and of course, option C., anyone who does will get Protools or Logic or something like that and won't need Linux drivers. This thing isn't even very advanced, it's just designed to replace an existing ADAT or other multitrack recorder with one pull. A person building a new studio probably wouldn't mess with this. Computers are fast enough now adays that you can easily sample 24 tracks at 96khz with an offboard module and stream it over regular firewire.
24bit resolution x 96000 = 2304000bps per track 2304000 x 24 tracks = 55296000bps with all tracks 55296000 / 8 bits per byte = 6912000 bytes per second (6.9mb/sec) Factor in overhead, rounding, etc. and you have max 10mb/second
I think firewire is 500mbits or something like that, easily enough to handle this bandwidth.
So what, you cracked how they record data onto the hard drive. It's probably just a stripped down FAT32 with less error correction, like a CD-ROM. Joliet or whatever. If it's patent protected, you're not going to be in trouble trying to read the data off the discs. You WOULD be in trouble if you made a competing product that uses the same scheme.
The question is WHO CARES, when you can just stream the stuff right to your laptop. This isn't an innovation, so I don't think you'd be harming Alesis or the world by releasing the drive specs.
Dear the_arbiter, My client, Alesis inc, has suffered extreme damage to reputation through the remarks posted by yourself on slashdot.org We are seeking $3.2 million in punitive damages, See you in court, Susan N. E. Boddee, Attorney, Screwem, Kickem & Run
Sueanne N. Ebody? I thought you were still with Dewey, Cheetum and Howe!
I recommend the Symantec AV Corporate Edition. Never a problem, runs fast, highly configurable, and you can set up a managed server and push it out to clients. And managed clients never know it's running because it runs as a hidden service.
Why don't you stop telling people how to use their computers. I want to email executables to people on occasion. It's easy. It works. Well, normally it works, unless you're using gmail.
You're right! It works in Outlook--hey, look, I just recieved an.EXE in my email. Sweet! I think it's a funny program from my girlfriend, Loveletter.exe! Man, double-click and I get the *&!@!*^#$~~$#!`1NO CARRIER
Slashdot Mirror
I use a queue system. I use a yellow legal pad as one thread (major problem category, ie: the financial database project, the active directory design), with each page being a queue. Then I either spend my time scheduling tasks or completing them. Just write down all the stuff you can think of to do at the end of each day. Then, the next morning, start at the top and do that task. As you work on the task, use a yellow highlighter to make a "progress bar": When the task is 50% complete, your highlight bar is 50% across, complete 100%.
//function makewindow(pixel lr pixel up down) //{ // start at that pixel // create a box // probably loop from pixel lr to box width // loop from pixel updown to box height // call render() // peace out //}
Next thing you know it will be time for lunch and you can slack the rest of the day... of course, you have to actually do it. Right now I should be working, but I'm on slashdot. I can see my notepads though. Usually when I start to feel guilty about not working, I'll pick up the notepad and read through it to make sure the project is cemented in my mind. When I start a new project, I spend a few days writing notes and diagrams, figuring out a flow for everything. Then you pick a place and start making details. When it comes to coding, I then transfer the notes into COMMENTS in a blank IDE. Like I'll have a comment that looks like this:
Which is from my notes but maybe with a little more thought put into it. In the notes it would be "draw box" I don't waste my time writing pseudocode on paper, when I can use a comment.
Then you just go line by line, refine the comment into your code. After that, you can refine the comment so it's just a description of the lines of code. Then you have full documented code from the beginning.
Oh yeah, and I write a manual for all product features before I make them. One page in MS Word. Use the built in style sheets for Header One (Feature Name) and then break up the task into Header 2 and Header 3 subs with normal text. Print, it looks great, NO EFFORT other than keep headings on their own line (don't even need a line break), then highlight and tag with applicable style. Impresses the boss EVEN WHEN YOU HAVEN'T WRITTEN CODE. Because, the code is not the work. The work is the plan, the architecture.
Back to work
Perhaps a prequel is in order? ;)
I'm not saying they ARE rigged, but if they WERE rigged, we wouldn't be able to do anything about it (unless someone really high up intervened or a lot of whistleblowers stood up). Because of the broad "anti-terror" and "homeland security" laws, the few early opponents could be easily silenced, and of course anyone else who chose to speak out would think twice after seeing the others disappear. It's not unlike Naxi Germany, where you they used FUD as a force multiplier. If everyone stood up at once, they could never handle it, but a few at a time are pretty easy to deal with. Once everyone notices what's happening (you know, the-people-who-watch-Fox-News-and-CNN-everyone), it's too late and only some outside force intervening can disrupt it.
But, they are probably not rigged. I mean, there are thousands of election boards with many people on each who can object. They are elected themselves of course. But they wouldn't let the system the tender do that to us. Of course, this guy is getting fired for standing up.............
People care about money but they don't care about their vote. It's too complicated. People don't realize that they are putting their freedom in trust of a system that also runs the voting. It really means our votes don't matter AT ALL, because at any time the results can be altered in thousands of ways. A few top guys get together, a few Diebold employees on payroll, bing, done, finished. And if we keep getting the same sort of people in there we have been (which we will, because it's not our choice anymore), they will continue to stack courts, increase presidential/executive authority, pass laws, amend constitutions, etc. that further this activity so the next election they can be even sneakier.
GATES: Welcome, young Balmer. I have been expecting you.
...are walking into a trap. As is your DoS Squad! It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the IP of the open ports. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of BSA agents awaits them.
Balmer's son peers at the hooded figure defiantly. Gates then looks down at the boy's binders.
GATES: You no longer need those.
Gates motions ever so slightly with his finger and Balmer's Son's binders fall away, clattering to the floor. The boy looks down at his own hands, free now to reach out and grab Gate's neck. He does nothing.
GATES: Guards, leave us.
The red-, yellow-, green- and blue-cloaked guards turn and disappear behind the elevator.
GATES (to Balmer's Son): I'm looking forward to completing your training. In time you will call me Master.
BALMER'S SON: You're gravely mistaken. You won't convert me as you did my father.
Gates gets down from his XP Console and walks up very close to Balmer's Son. Gates looks into his eyes and, for the first time, Balmer's Son can perceive the evil visage within the hood.
GATES: Oh, no, my young Linux Admin. You will find that it is you who are mistaken...about a great many things.
BALMER: His iPod.
BALMER extends a gloved hand toward Gates, revealing his son's iPod. Gates takes it.
GATES: Ah, yes, a Linux Admin's toy. Much like your father's Portable Media Center(tm). By now you must know your father can never be turned from the dark side. So will it be with you.
BALMER'S SON: You're wrong. Soon I'll be dead...and you with me.
Gates laughs.
GATES: Perhaps you refer to the imminent attack of your Unix DoS Squad.
Balmer's Son looks up sharply.
GATES: Yes...I assure you we are quite safe from your friends here.
BALMER looks at his son.
BALMER'S SON: Your overconfidence is your weakness.
GATES: Your faith in your friends is yours.
BALMER: It is pointless to resist, my son.
Gates turns to face Balmer's Son.
GATES (angry): Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. (points to a NETSTAT on the monitor) Your friends out there on the Internet..
Balmer's Son reacts. Gates notes it.
GATES (cont):
Balmer's Son look darts from Gates to Balmer and, finally, to the iPod in Gate's hand.
GATES: Oh...I'm afraid the firewall will be quite operational when your friends' packets arrive.
TO BE CONTINUED
You don't have a wife, do you?
I think the "forms", paper or digital, are archaic. They have been fundamentaly the same since the 1950's. It would be cool to get a stack of 1040's, one for each year for the last 50 years, just to see the changes.
The computer systems they use to process the returns are probably older than the forms. And the people running them are either A. older than that or B. not worth talking to. At least they haven't outsourced to India, but have you ever called the IRS? Their phone system was installed in the 1920's. It grates and clicks and 50% of the time there's so much static that you can't even have an intelligable conversation with the person on the other end who's not worth talking to.
I am self-employed and so my taxes are a little more complicated than sending in the 1040EZ and getting the money back. On the surface, it doesn't seem very complicated--save everything, have separate accounts and accounting for business and personal, don't lie on your return, pay your estimated taxes on time.
But really, why is there a fucking box on the first line of the form asking if I'll donate $3 to some election campaign? What does that really mean? Is that the magic "no audit" box? Can I check that box, fill in all zeros and not pay any taxes this year?
Why is there a HUGE FUCKING LIST of stuff you can deduct, depreciate, and adjust your income with? They should have a short list describing stuff you can't: anything fun, anything good, anything nice. It's pretty simple: if you enjoyed making a purchase, it is NOT DEDUCTIBLE!
Then there's all these scams that you have to pay a CPA to do, because they know all the tricks. This is the computer age! Why can't my bank provide me with a file at the end of the year giving me a list of deductible expenses? There's a multi-billion dollar industry here that's never been created because they change the fucking laws every year. Look what it's done to the IRS.
In the late 60's, Nixon took us off the gold standard. Since then, the IRS have been using the same computers and the same forms to process increasingly large numbers in huge stacks. It's no wonder no one wants to get into the business (besides like Intuit) -- look at what it's done to the IRS.
I mean, you look at the post office. What a fucked up bureaucracy. But damn, they can move a physical object around the country pretty fast and cheap--and make money. And they always have new equipment, and it pays for itself. The post office is a horrible piece of shit company, but it's a company, not a service, not a department of the government. And it makes money and runs ok. Not like fedex does, but not bad.
They need to start fresh, new. Use a nice fair flat tax for individuals and a nice fair flat tax for corporations. They need to skim a little of the collections (.001% or something) and buy some new computers for every employee.
The problem is they can't do it fast enough to be ready for the next tax season. The real problem is that so many people are ripping off the system and then sending the money to the lawmakers that they can't change it. They'd all go broke. The government would end up having to give money back because they couldn't spend all of it.
They actually did that this year in Nevada--they gave the money back because they had so much they couldn't spend it?
What if the government had to do it's "taxes" every year through the same IRS system, and had to prove every expense, etc? Would we be bankrupt?
Opt out...of paying taxes.
chrs
Check this out, type "nanotechnology" in the finance search box or click.
You get a list of 60 nanotechnology related companies. I'm assuming it searches by profile or industry. With a more advanced search language, you could pull up very selective lists of stocks. The hard part to trading is finding a stock in the sector that you like and then comparing it with a few competitors. Google could add some tags so you could do:
nanotechnology industry:medical peratio:+10.1 eps:>.01
and get a list of stocks in the medical industry who've mentioned nanotechnology and have a PE ratio of +10.1 and an EPS of greater than 1 cent.
That would be tight.
Making hoes... I thought that's what a pimp does..
chrs
Try here.
Cheers,
It's merely the trend that's taking place worldwide. There are fewer and fewer individual governments. Look at the EU, a great example: during WWII, who would've thought that all of western europe would unite under a common currency? NAFTA caused many changes in North America, providing a set of "international laws" which directed trade and future agreements between the US and it's neighbors. Laws are the basis of government.
The underlying trend is that there will be more and more of these agreements. More and more western hemisphere countries are linking their currency to the US dollar, which is why there has been turmoil in South America for the past 25 years... I would guess that South America will have a free trade agreement in place soon; if it weren't for the worldwide black market in drugs (which competes with oil as being the number one dollar value product traded), south america would already be one country. A lot of people benefit from conflicts between countries and economic inequality. During a hawkish administration like we have in power now (Bush and Co.), defense contractors benefit greatly.
I just don't see how it's possible to not unite eventually, especially as the internet continues to spread into the 3rd world. That will be the way they jump on the worldwide economy, digitally, and start selling their products to consumers directly.
What if you could log on and buy your product straight from the factory in china and cut out walmart, distributers, etc?
Yeah, there's a checkbox to disable all recursion in Windows Server DNS, under DNS > Forwarders and Advanced tabs.
u rrentVersion\DNS Server
The problem is doing the cache for internal hosts (or an internal interface) and running zone authority for external (internet) users on one server. Apparently it's not possible using the built in configuration tool. There's probably a registry key which determines which interface will forward or not, around here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\C
It may be possible to get another instance running on a different interface also..
Until then, you need two hosts in Windows, with one not allowing recursion on the outside or DMZd/NATd and one local cache/forwardder box inside. Thanx MS
"No one will ever need more than 640K of RAM"
I think that this is probably going to be the most exciting 50 years ever--so many new advances and new problems facing the world. I think that this guy needs to stop letting nostalgia get to him.
When in history have: so many people had the ability to share and communicate ideas
When in history have we actually had to worry about the carrying capacity of the planet.
When in history have we had one world government coming into power?
Ok, those are all social changes. Tech? Shit, too many to list: NANOTECHNOLOGY for one, will change everything from computers to cars to carpet. GENETIC ENGINEERING/BIOTECH will probably create a drug that stops the aging process (in the next 50 years), clones, etc. SPACE, humans will again turn their eyes towards the sky once we are mostly living peacefully around the world. Mars, Venus, probes, space stations, space tourism, space elevators (see NANOTECHNOLOGY), MORE.
Yeah, it's not as "easy" to innovate, but when was it ever EASY? Edison worked for years on the light bulb and his other inventions, which is probably one of the simplest things we use each day.
I mean, sure, most innovation today is happening either at a really large scale or a really small scale and so to the "average human" it doesn't seem very cool or sexy (it's not "human sized"). But once people see that these things will create human sized changes in the world, they are going to take notice.
IBM should FIRE this guy if he's the VP of Research.
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation can multiply their fortune by buying overpriced software from Microsoft. They buy a bunch of PCs for the third world, tax free because it's chairity. Then they buy a bunch of copies of Windows and Office from their own company for hundreds of dollars. So basically they are buying the boxes from themselves. But if they donate all of the "profits" to the foundation, all of a sudden they aren't paying taxes on the money. So the money just goes round and round in different Bill bank accounts, while MS fills the world with microsoft headies for the cost of some commodity hardware.
MIT should get smart and do something similar:
1. Price of the box hardware, en masse: $100.00
2. Create a corporation to manufacture, configure and distribute the boxes.
3. Create a charitable foundation to buy the boxes from the corporation and give to the Africans.
4. Corporation charges the foundation $300.00 for the box, Terms NET 30.
5. Corporation takes $200 profit (out of thin air) and donates it to the foundation and does not pay taxes on the money.
6. Both sides balance sheets look good because the money is in 2 places at the "same time", yet all they are doing is spending $100 "REAL" dollars per computer.
Because you have more money than is actually really there, you are leveraging your money with time. The better financials can help the company borrow money, sell stock at a higher price, etc. The foundation looks stronger than it actually is.
Of course, it's hard to do this when you're a small enterprise, because banks aren't giving you the benefit of the doubt and letting you time stuff right. It could be done, however. The hardware costs will kill you, of course.
The real deal is that Bill and Melinda aren't selling something that costs money, they are only selling the software, letting other people worry about the hardware. They are selling copies of something, which costs fractions of a cent to make, for big prices. And they are selling it to their own foundation, and using the tax benefits to spread their software to new worlds, new users, etc. like a cancer.
JUST SMOKE IT, YO!!!
Scientists have discovered a restaurant at the end of the universe.
I come from a long helpdesk background and am now a senior developer at a mid-sized company. Unlike most of you nerds there's one thing I enjoy more than "being right" and that's "being lazy." That's why I love stupid users. I loved having a job where the biggest problem I faced in a day was telling a user to turn their monitor on. Or turn their capslock off. The worst job I EVER had was working with some very bright and very motivated individuals who were not geeks but were extremely competent in everything they did. The one thing they didn't know well was computers, and in that business you didn't need to know computers to make a crapload of money. But because they were all so brilliant, every little thing was nitpicked. Everything had to be done now now now. There were no easy problems and every day I was challenged to learn and perfectly perform something that I'd never done before with technology. There was always some shit on the line: huge fines from regulatory institutions, huge investments of money, hundreds of employees counting on your work. If the worst you have to deal with is someone dumber than you, you have it made. Make friends with your users, treat them like people, and soon you'll be in middle management, making bad decisions for a big salary.
Yeah, and you look at the events that were occuring before the WTC thing and the general public was starting to get interested. Millions marching worldwide to protest G8, "globalization", increasing police powers, restrictions on free speech, etc. Now, 6 years later, China is rapidly becoming the #1 economy, EU is ALREADY bigger than the U.S., energy consumption worldwide is still growing exponentially and we are rapidly heading towards the entry of China and India (2 billion+ people) moving into the first world. Granted, at first it will only be a small segment of those economies, as it already is (100-200 million people). American rights are continually trampled for "our safety" when I have never felt unsafe. The scary thing is to even think about how easy it was for people to take advantage of the fear and profit SO GREATLY--one can almost see those same people manufacturing a similar scenario in the future when they need another distraction/reason. I mean, it was SO EASY for them to past unconstitutional laws.
The constitution is just a guide, of course. The forefathers knew what government could be capable of and tried to make general rules that would allow the people to keep control of their government. The problem is, this is a big fucking experiment. Have these rules ever really been tested sucessfully? I mean, they could never beat Great Britian on their own turf, so they RAN AWAY to the open lands of America to make their stand where they knew the British couldn't win. France helped. When they wrote the constitution, they took a look around at the current world political situation and the history books and tried to come up with a list of things that could prevent a government from serving it's people in the barest sense, and as an experiment, proposed something that never existed.
Even in the first years of the constitution's existence, many amendments were made, including the Bill of Rights, which is what we keep quoting. I think that there are a few things that really stand out, and they are a few really good ideas that we should all remember, regardless of our personal beliefs.
#1. Religion and State are separate, please. Confusing beliefs with logic is a mistake, although there is a fine line sometimes. However, hating Muslims is no different than hating Jews. NO DIFFERENT. Fine, hate PEOPLE, but not ideas.
Likewise, don't confuse a country with it's people. We don't hate Germans in this country anymore, yet they were hated. We threw Japanese in camps during WWII yet today they own half of our currency--in fact, they are the reason we are able to experience such amazing economic growth. Iraqis are not all gunmen. They are, just like the Germans, mostly just normal people who go to work, eat, sleep, read their bible, etc.
You have to understand that the last 200 years have been a whirlwind for religions everywhere. The industrial revolution, the energy/oil booms, the space age, sexual revolutions in western society, the internet--these have all just come into being and suddenly a lot of great ideas that really helped people stay alive and live a happy life are rapidly becoming irrelevant.
For instance: You KNOW that the Muslim AND Jewish tenants for not eating pork are because it was DANGEROUS (Among other reasons). In the last 200 years, refrigeration, thermometers, preservation, etc. has all come into being. (and swine just doesn't fit in well with the ecosystem in the mideast)
#2. Bah
Actually, yes.
Yeah, patent-encumbered. But look at the product! How many people here will ever A. Have the dough to buy one of these or B. Have a legitimate use for it? and of course, option C., anyone who does will get Protools or Logic or something like that and won't need Linux drivers. This thing isn't even very advanced, it's just designed to replace an existing ADAT or other multitrack recorder with one pull. A person building a new studio probably wouldn't mess with this. Computers are fast enough now adays that you can easily sample 24 tracks at 96khz with an offboard module and stream it over regular firewire.
24bit resolution x 96000 = 2304000bps per track
2304000 x 24 tracks = 55296000bps with all tracks
55296000 / 8 bits per byte = 6912000 bytes per second (6.9mb/sec)
Factor in overhead, rounding, etc. and you have max 10mb/second
I think firewire is 500mbits or something like that, easily enough to handle this bandwidth.
So what, you cracked how they record data onto the hard drive. It's probably just a stripped down FAT32 with less error correction, like a CD-ROM. Joliet or whatever. If it's patent protected, you're not going to be in trouble trying to read the data off the discs. You WOULD be in trouble if you made a competing product that uses the same scheme.
The question is WHO CARES, when you can just stream the stuff right to your laptop. This isn't an innovation, so I don't think you'd be harming Alesis or the world by releasing the drive specs.
Sueanne N. Ebody? I thought you were still with Dewey, Cheetum and Howe!
I recommend the Symantec AV Corporate Edition. Never a problem, runs fast, highly configurable, and you can set up a managed server and push it out to clients. And managed clients never know it's running because it runs as a hidden service.
You're right! It works in Outlook--hey, look, I just recieved an